Use the drawing tools under the "Insert" menu in Microsoft Excel to draw an image to scale by tracing that image. One advantage of using Excel's drawing tools for this project, rather than a graphics program such as Paint or Photoshop, is that Excel's drawing tools produce vectors, which are graphics that you can enlarge without losing image quality. Use caution when tracing large images, as the resulting drawing can greatly increase the file size of your Excel workbook.

Open Excel and click the "File" menu. Click the "New" command to create a new workbook.

Click the "Insert" menu and then click the "Picture" button. Navigate to the image you want to use for your scale drawing and double-click on it. Excel will load the picture into the current worksheet. If the object you want to draw to scale is a physical object, take a digital photo of it and then load the photo onto your computer, following the instructions provided in your camera's user guide. Perform this step from the beginning once the photo is loaded on your PC.

Click the "Insert" tab and then click the "Shapes" button to display a gallery of shapes you can use to trace the inserted image. Click the icon that looks like a straight-line segment, then click the starting point of a straight line in the inserted image. For example, if you are drawing a house plan to scale, click the end of one of the lines representing an exterior wall of the house. Drag the mouse to the line's endpoint and then release the mouse to complete the line segment.

Click the “Shape” command on the Insert menu and then click the icon that looks like a squiggly line to access the mode for drawing arbitrary shapes.

Drag the mouse over one of the curved lines in your inserted image. For example, if you are drawing a person's face to scale, drag over the outline of one eye.

Repeat Steps 2 through 4 to draw the remaining straight and curved lines on your inserted image to complete the scale drawing in Excel.

About the Author

Darrin Koltow wrote about computer software until graphics programs reawakened his lifelong passion of becoming a master designer and draftsman. He has now committed to acquiring the training for a position designing characters, creatures and environments for video games, movies and other entertainment media.